Gender Statistics

Gender statistics are an important tool to raise public awareness of the living conditions of women and men. It also provides policy makers with data to facilitate changes to government's policies affecting women and men differently and provides an unbiased source of information to monitor the actual and real effects of these policies and programs on the lives of women and men.

Why do we need Gender Statistics?

There has been a long standing focus on achieving equality between women and men in the Pacific, with legal and policy commitments expressed in a range of national, regional and international instruments such as:

In order to implement and monitor measures to achieve these commitments, Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) need evidence of the current situation of women and men and how this is changing over time. This information is critical for law-making, policy-making, international human rights reporting, and national, regional and international advocacy. Despite this, the availability, accessibility and use of statistics on the situation of women and men continue to be weak across the region.

SPC’s work to develop gender statistics has been initiated in response to requests from PICTs. The regional gender statistics framework provides guidance on the common indicators used for monitoring gender equality. Work to implement this framework will strengthen the capacity of national statistical systems to collect and maintain these data and of national law and policy makers to use them for more effective and sustainable progress.

SPC is currently working with governments and development partners to collate available data across the framework and the results will be featured on this website. This is work in progress, and pages will continue to be updated as indicators are compiled and related materials become available.